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Note: This article represents the view of the author and not the University of Hong Kong.

According to an instant poll designed by the author, the popularity rating of CE Tung Chee-hwa has increased significantly from 46.6 to 48.2 marks immediately after he delivered his Sixth Policy Address on January 8, but such a stabilizing effect was extremely brief, as his popularity plummeted to 45.6 again the following day. Findings showed that many who adopted a wait-and-see position in the first day quickly became dissatisfied the following day, and lost faith in CE's policy proposals.

No wonder why Lam Shan-mo, a veteran member of the press with pseudonym Lin Xing-zhi, had this to say on January 9 in his Hong Kong Economic Journal: "Having heard the 'new wisdom' of our government, Hong Kong people should wake up before it's too late. Let's pray for ourselves, and work for ourselves. There is no way our government can alleviate our suffering. If the government can remain impartial in maintaining the public order, social stability, fair competitions, and in protecting our public rights and private properties, we would be much more than grateful." After the government has performed so many surgeries on its think tanks and the civil service, including the introduction of the so-called accountability system, Lam had expected "something new" from CE's policy address. He was utterly disappointed.

The author couldn't have agreed more to Lam's observations. However, while the general public is busily praying for themselves, our professionals should have the stamina to anchor themselves firmly to the world, in order to construct a better China. Professionals, especially those working in the academia, the media, the legal, cultural and even business sectors, should be committed to values and virtues which transcend individual gains and patriotic interests. Such professionalism is the key to Hong Kong's success, it is where the future of China lies. Tung Chee-hwa's repeated emphasis on Hong Kong's reliance on the backing of the Mainland can at best be employed as a strategy for our economy's short-term development. As a long-term solution to Hong Kong's positioning, it is rather superficial, and fails to grasp the public mood and our advantages.

Take the development of opinion surveys as an example, with which the author is quite familiar. After the handover, Hong Kong has failed to capitalize on our advantage as an early leader among the Mainland, Taiwan, Macau and Hong Kong. Academics and practitioners have failed to develop a professional code of practice for others to follow. Instead, we have chosen to trim our own strength, which triggered the Polling Incident.

Is opinion polling academic? Should researchers make comments? Are policy studies and opinion polling connected? Questions which are almost obsolete in open societies suddenly became excuses for local political wrestles.

The opening of the "POP Column" in our POP Site will provide a platform for tackling these and other questions related to "public opinion". To begin with, the author will produce most of the articles, but as time goes by, other experts and academics will be invited to discuss the development of opinion surveys and other input systems elsewhere in the world. Needless to say, the column will also function as a mechanism to monitor the performance of the government, as well as to raise the professional standard of the industry. To produce immediate effects, column authors will be concise and precise to point out any fallacy in research design and data interpretation, they will also make suggestions on how to raise the standard of local research.

Since the handover, quite many professionals have been forced to cringe for money and turned to the powerful bigwigs. This kind of short-sighted behaviour will gradually weaken our existing advantages, and Hong Kong will gradually drift away from the international community to become patronized under the other system of our one country.

This trend may well be able to ease up the relationship between the central and local governments, but from a long-term perspective, what the Mainland society needs most is the international experience of Hong Kong, while what concerns the Taiwan society most is a proof of peaceful democratic and livelihood integration. Shall we keep counting on the backing of the Mainland instead of making our own foothold in the world, we will not be doing any good even to mother China herself.

The true value of Hong Kong lies in our ability to bring all Chinese people to the commonwealth of the world.